Some embodiments described herein relate generally to an apparatus for providing communications between wireless communication devices and a network, using, for example, a multiple input-multiple output (MIMO) access point device optimized to operate within a 5.0 GHZ band.
In a wireless local area network (WLAN), wireless communication devices can typically operate in the 2.4 GHz ISM (industrial, scientific and medical) band (e.g., 802.11b/g/n) and/or the 5.0 GHz band (e.g., 802.11a/n). The 2.4 GHz band is not only the most common for 802.11b/g wireless communication devices, but also populated by many consumer devices such as cordless phones, Bluetooth devices, and microwave ovens that all lead to reduced availability of network spectrum. As a result, wireless communication devices operating in the 2.4 GHz band often have to contend with additional network performance issues from a variety of sources. On the other hand, the 5.0 GHz band has more available channels and is generally used less than the 2.4 GHz band. Therefore, one solution to reduce contention for the busy 2.4 GHz band resource is to move or steer wireless communication devices capable of operating in the 5.0 GHz band to the 5.0 GHz band.
Some known dual band, dual radio access point devices are capable of supporting two different bands, such as, for example, a 2.4 GHz band (802.11b/g/n) and a 5.0 GHz band (802.11a/n) simultaneously. These access point devices can typically optimize the overall performance (e.g., in terms of throughput) for the two bands (e.g., 2.4 GHz band and the 5.0 GHz band). That is, a wireless communication device antenna gains and transmit power circuitry can be roughly performance balanced between the two bands (e.g., 2.4 GHz band and the 5.0 GHz band). Because signals in the 5.0 GHz band are attenuated roughly twice as much as signals in the 2.4 GHz band, by over the air (OTA) and through radio frequency (RF) obstacle signal attenuation, the OTA signals in the 5.0 GHz band are roughly half of the power at receivers as they are in the 2.4 GHz band. Thus, wireless communication devices typically experience lower performance in the 5.0 GHz band in many environments. As a result, wireless communication devices capable of operating in dual bands (e.g., 802.11n) typically resist steering or moving to the 5.0 GHz band, while generally choosing to communicate with these access point devices using the 2.4 GHz band.
Accordingly, a need exists for methods and apparatus to implement band steering at a dual band access point device, such that wireless communication devices can voluntarily choose to associate with that access point device using a higher center frequency band (e.g., 5.0 GHz band), thus to provide better throughput to those wireless communication devices operating in the higher center frequency spectrum, while also easing congestion for other wireless communication devices remaining in the lower center frequency (e.g., 2.4 GHz) spectrum.